Vietnam TravelTravel Special FeaturesVietnam - The Craft VillagesVong's Com

Vong's Com

Just as some villages became known for their crafts, others gained fame due to their distinctive foods. The dishes produced in certain regions became so well known that travelers are expected to buy these delicacies as gifts for their friends and relations back home. Fish sauce from the southern island Phu Quoc, coconut candy from the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre, green bean candy from the northern province of Hai Duong, and mien noodles from the western outskirts of Ha Noi are just a few examples of foodstuffs which, having been produced in the same regions for centuries, are now associated with those places.

Another example is com, green sticky rice that originated in a village to the west of Hanoi. The link between culture, food and place is revealed in the following verse by the late composer and song writer Tring Cong Son:

When autumn comes, this is the time when leaves turn red and gold,
The time when we have com, which lends its fragrance to the hands that hold it
You can smell it when the girls pass by, as the breeze spreads the scent of milk flowers.

The most famous com hails from Vong village, which lies about seven kilometers west of Hanoi in the Tu Liem District. According to legend, 500 years ago the village was hit by a famine. With nothing to eat save green rice still growing in the paddies, one hungry farmer decided to roast the unripe grains. The villagers discovered that by roasting the rice in a clay pot and pounding it to remove the rice husks they could produce a dish that was not merely palatable, but delicious. When the king heard of this new delicacy he summoned the head of Vong village to visit the court. Thereafter, each autumn the villagers presented the court with an offering of com.

To this day, in the late summer and autumn, villagers from Vong still travel by bicycle into Hanoi. To be able to sell their com in capital's morning markets, the villagers must work all night.

The rice is cut about three a.m., after which it is threshed, sifted and roasted in an earthenware pot. To preserve the sweet flavor and vibrant green color of the young rice, each batch should consists of no more than 800 grams of rice. Roasting large batches, say the villagers, results in pale, tasteless com.

After roasting, the com is placed in a stone mortar and pounded 150 times. The rice husks are removed and the pounding starts again, then again, and again. After seven or eight stints of pounding the com is soft but not sticky, with an incredibly vivid color - as green as banana leaves. Wrapped in lotus leaves, which infuse the rice with their sweet scent, the com can keep for up to two days. Selling for about VND30,000 to VND35,000 per kilogram, com is often served with bananas, or made into cakes and sweet pudding.

Should you find yourself in Hanoi in the early autumn, an excursion to Vong village will reveal the bustling activity that characterizes a traditional food village. It will also give you the chance to sample some fresh com, a dish loved as much for its sweet flavor as for its symbolic association with the traditional way of life of farmers in the red River Delta. As the writer Thach Lam (1910-1942) wrote:

Com is a special gift of the soil made by hard-working peasant. It holds a simple, fresh and agrarian fragrance deep inside itself.

Getting There

For Vong village, take the dyke road west out of Hanoi and drive 7km to Tu Liem District. When you reach a three-way intersection, go straight about 1km, then turn left to Dich Vong commune. Vong village is in this area, around 10km from central Hanoi.